I had my first real demon fight in a burned-out mall on the edge of the Zone.

Maybe I was being careless, maybe I was trying to draw them out. I should have been paying more attention, but there was something soothing about this place. It had a graveyard feel - a slice of the past, left to rot in plain sight.

The demons caught me in the parking lot, halfway between Circle K and Burger King. I’d seen versions of these in Jacob’s drawings, but he didn’t do them justice. Three wolves with their hair shaved off, lean and fast, with long, flat heads. They streaked across the asphalt like gray bullets, closing in from three sides.

I was sitting on an old car, abandoned by someone shortly before or shortly after the miasma got to them. I was perched on the hood kicking my feet against the bumper, reading Jacob’s journal in the dark.

It’s a moment of truth, I guess, when a man faces danger for the first time. You show your true colors in a moment like that. You can watch all the movies and dream about hero stuff all day, but you don’t really know what kind of person you are until it happens.

I had trained for weeks to keep calm and control my fear, but in my first few moments of actual combat, I just yelled “Fuck!” and threw my arms up over my face. I couldn’t remember my macros. I couldn’t remember my spells. I couldn’t remember my goddamn name. The demons caught me in a perfect simultaneous takedown. My body spun like a pinwheel before it hit the ground.

I remember thinking, this is it. This is how people die - alone in the middle of nowhere, screaming for help in an empty parking lot.

The Hunters were ripping at my jacket, tearing huge chunks from the fabric. The armor would be gone in seconds, and I couldn’t remember my wards. The demons were climbing all over me. They weighed ninety, maybe a hundred pounds each. I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t even move.

One of them stayed on my chest to pin me down and started to glow, preparing to extract my soul and drag it to Hell. The other two grabbed my arms and started to pull, like dogs fighting over a toy.

I couldn’t just lay there. I had to cast something. Wards was too long. Strength was too long. Levitation was four symbols, but I couldn’t remember… I’d cast that spell a hundred times, but I couldn’t remember it now.

My eyes were watering, my fists were clenched, and I had a thick line of snot dribbling out my nose. I couldn’t feel the magic. My body was a big dead lump. After all that training, first sign of trouble, I was mundane again - soft, pink, and helpless, just like everybody else.

The anger came then, anger at my own weakness, anger at the way my courage evaporated. But this time, I reached for the anger, held it, and turned it all into magic. The power grabbed me like a giant hand and lifted me straight up. It felt like an angel taking me in its arms, but it was just me, casting the first spell I ever learned.

The Hunters tried to hang on, but they were too heavy, and I was moving too fast. My jacket ripped at the seams, drifting like a kite as the demons fell away. One quick whoosh and there I was, hovering thirty feet above the battle, with all the time in the world. The Hunters leapt at me, but I was too far away.

I didn’t even need spells anymore. I drew the pistol and hesitated, right before I pulled the trigger. I could kill them this time, but what about the next time and the next time and the time after that? I could finish this fight with three bullets, but it wouldn’t really solve anything. Baalphezar would send another batch of demons, and I would freeze up again, just like I did this time.

I couldn’t do it like this. I couldn’t just pick them off from a distance. I had to face them on the ground. I had to feel them and smell them and look them in the eyes. Was I really strong enough to break this contract, or was I just drunk on desperation and fairy tales? Could I hold my concentration with a pack of demons breathing down my neck? I had to know, once and for all. I had to get back down there and prove I could do this.

I cast wards and fortitude from memory, struck by how easy everything was at this altitude. I picked a spot ten feet from the pack and lowered myself to the ground. The Hunters came instantly, launching themselves into the air. The first one hit my arm and spun me around. The others missed and came around for another pass. The impact made my knees buckle, but I stayed on my feet.

I wanted to run or shoot or take to the air again. Instead, I clenched my fists and gathered my wards around me, sucking in power for all I was worth. My aura lit up the parking lot. The Hunters circled and came again - low, high, and middle, just like the first time.

I trusted my wards, and they held. I took a breath and tried to calm myself, wincing as they hit me again and again. I held off three more attacks and forced myself to fight back. When the leader jumped again, I grabbed his neck and flung him as hard as I could. I’m not sure how far he went. He just soared over Burger King and never came back. I guess the fall killed it.

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The Hunters were barely sentient, but they knew they were in trouble. The second one hesitated, giving me time to brace myself. I swung my right arm and punched it, catching it square in the snout. I knew I was using a lot of power, but I didn’t really understand what that meant. The Hunter’s face shattered, staining my shirt with six different shades of demon goo.

The third one yelped and tried to run. I grabbed its hind leg and slammed it down on the old car, leaving a perfect demon-shaped dent in the hood. The Hunter yipped like a dog and tried to squirm away. I beat it to death with my bare hands.

Then it was silent. I pissed myself during the fight, but I don’t remember when.

* * *

I was limping home, desperate to wash off the blood and shame from this fight, when Veazey buzzed through. “Got a midnight visitor over here. You okay?”

“I’m alright now. What kind of visitor?”

“Demon tried to talk me out of helping you. Borrowed the face of an old buddy and basically called you a suicidal coward who would freeze up at the first sign of trouble.”

“Well, he was right about that last part,” I said. “Just had my first fight about twenty minutes ago. Sounds like this guy was sent to keep you talking, so you wouldn’t interfere when they went for me.”

“What happened? Do you need help?”

“No, I got it now, but your demon buddy was right. I froze up and almost got my soul sucked out, but I think I got a handle on it now. And for the record, I did fight pretty hard! If I really wanted to die, I could have died pretty easy just now. But I didn’t. Cut it way closer than I should have, but the demons are dead and I’m alive.”

“Goddammit, Tim! What happened!”

“I’ll send you my POV if you really want it, but it was not pretty. Surprise attack scared me so bad, I forgot everything I trained for and ended up flat on my back in a parking lot.”

“So, how did you get out?”

“Short version? I got angry. Turns out anger kills fear, at least for me. So, if I want to beat these things, all I have to do is stay angry. That’s gonna be a bit of a challenge for me, since I’ve spent my whole life trying to choke anger down. I guess that means I’ll have plenty to let out, right?”

“You need me to come over there?”

“No. Stay in your circle. I’m just gonna get cleaned up and get some sleep. Apartment wards should keep them out, even if they do cut around the Zone.”

Veazey fell into angry silence, threatening to come sleep in my living room anyway. I finally agreed to keep a live monitor going between us, although we wouldn’t be close enough to do anything, if the other one got in trouble.

I walked in silence for a while before I said, “The fight was scary and all, but the part that really bothers me? Punching shit with magic feels good. Really good. But it only felt good because they were monsters, right? You don’t think it’ll feel good if I have to hurt people, do you?”

Veazey said nothing.

“I never wanted to hurt anybody in my life. I would be devastated if somebody else got hurt because of me. But the guys in that book, my ancestors, they hardly talked about the killing at all. And I’m starting to wonder, did they skip it because they were ashamed of it, or did they skip it because the way their brains worked, it was no big deal?

“I wasn’t sure what word to use, so I looked it up. A real psychopath doesn’t feel anything when he does something wrong. They don’t feel remorse because in their head, everything they do is justified. I think my great grandpa was one of those. Grandpa Jim sounds more like a sociopath. He had a conscience that made him feel bad, but he also had an excuse for everything, to explain why nothing was ever his fault.

“I don’t think any of them actually enjoyed hurting people. I’ve only read a little bit, but so far nobody has talked about getting excited or feeling a rush of power when they killed someone. But the problem is, we do feel a rush of power when we’re fighting. I feel it, and I’m just using Earth magic. But all these guys who came before me, they were using Hell magic, infernal magic, pulled through Lydia. What if that magic made them feel good when they hurt people? How fast would it change me, if it felt good to hurt people?”

Veazey said nothing.

“Veazey,” I continued, when he did not reply. “I’m not a bad guy, right? It’s natural to lose your temper when you’re provoked. You’ve been in all kinds of fights, but you’re not sick or broken. Getting in fights was just a military thing, just a Texas thing, right? My whole life, I never wanted to fight anybody, but now that I have, I kinda want to do it again.”

“It’s normal,” Veazey reassured me. “All this is normal, after you’ve had to fight like that. And remember, you didn’t hurt nobody. You’re not a killer, you’re a demon slayer. Those things you hurt; they weren’t even animals. They were corrupted and evil, and if you didn’t send them back, they could have been used to hurt someone else. So, you did a good thing tonight. Just hang on to that, and don’t get in your head about it. You’re a good guy who cares about people, and you always will be.”

* * *

The next morning, I walked back to the parking lot and picked up the pieces of my jacket. It was essential equipment, and I couldn’t afford a new one. I went back to the store and tried to exchange the pieces. The owner opened the box and held up the remains of my sleeve, moving his lamp so he could get a better look at the teeth marks.

“What the hell did you do to this thing?”

“I had a problem with my dog.”

The owner clucked his tongue and dropped my sleeve back in the box. “This jacket is rated for knives, shrapnel, and small arms under ten-millimeter. If you got shit chewin’ on you, you need to take your business elsewhere.”

“The warranty says ‘attack, or non-chemical damage.’ That should include teeth.”

“Alright. I’ll replace it once, but don’t let me see you in here again.”

* * *

Veazey called me a couple days later and said, “Can you stay out of trouble for a couple days? The guys need me in Colorado.”

“Shit! What happened?”

“They made it to holy ground, but they spotted a pack of those things in the woods, and they’ve got no safe place to run. I’m gonna air drop in and see if I can help them pick shit off.”

“Shit,” I said again. “Do you need me there?”

“No,” Veazey said. “You’ve only got a couple days before what’s her name gets back. You gotta stick with the plan.”